031 Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is an American holiday, which is mostly about food! Today we'll be talking about what you do on Thanksgiving, the history, and also Black Friday and Cyber Monday!

Bookmark Chapters:
00:00 Intro
02:17 What does Thanksgiving mean today?
04:10 History
09:13 My Thanksgiving from UC Berkeley
19:52 Cyber Monday

Transcript

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Kuli English Podcast. It's me, your host, Chris. So today is November 10th, which is a Monday, and tomorrow is November 11th, which is the day that this episode is going to be released.

And so in this episode, I want to talk about Thanksgiving. And by the way, you know, since today's 11-11, there's this Korean song actually called 11-11, which I like. It's by Taeyeon.

Uh, you don't have to listen to it. It has nothing to do with English. It has nothing to do with this podcast, but I just thought it's kind of cool.

But anyways, uh, this episode, I'm going to be talking about Thanksgiving, which is like a really famous American holiday, but it's not really famous, I mean, it's not really celebrated in other countries. Uh, so for example, now I'm living in Japan and nobody really celebrates Thanksgiving here, which is a little bit sad, because Thanksgiving is pretty fun. 

And, uh, by the way, if you don't know what Thanksgiving is, Thanksgiving is like a holiday in November, where basically you meet up with your family or you meet up with friends and you just eat a lot, it's like food oriented holiday, which I think is like one of the best holidays. Um, and, uh, it's always on the last Thursday of November.

So in the 11th month, in November, uh, it's on the last Thursday. So you look at the last week of November and then the Thursday is Thanksgiving. So in this month, that's going to be the 27th.

And then right after that is another holiday, which is called black Friday. And black Friday is, you know, again, the day after Thursday is Friday. So on the 27th is Thanksgiving.

The 28th is black Friday and black Friday is when a lot of shops have a lot of like sales and a massive discount and stuff, and usually it's online too. So, uh, in this podcast episode, I'm going to be talking about Thanksgiving, a little bit about black Friday. And then I'll also tell you about some of my own personal stories about Thanksgiving.

But first we're going to take a short little break.

All right. So let's go and talk about Thanksgiving.

And, uh, first I want to talk about like what Thanksgiving means to everyday people. So modern day people. And I do want to talk about the history of Thanksgiving, but that's going to be a little bit later.

So first I need to tell you what does Thanksgiving mean? So if someone were to point at me, you know, they point at me and they're like, Hey, you, Chris. And I'm like, huh, who me? And they're like, yeah, yeah. You think about Thanksgiving.

What's on your mind. So if I had to think about Thanksgiving, what images come to my mind, it's probably turkey and eating and eating turkey, like it's these three things. Well, I said three things, but the third one is just eating turkey, which is like the first two combined.

Uh, so basically there's like two main things about Thanksgiving, which is eating and turkey. Um, and if someone did the same thing for something else, so not Thanksgiving, but maybe Christmas, uh, there's going to be more things. So if I think about Christmas, then, you know, there's a bunch of things that are associated with Christmas, to have to do with Christmas.

For example, Christmas trees or Christmas presents or Santa Claus or Christmas songs. Uh, there's, there's a lot of stuff, but Thanksgiving is very simple. It's just about like turkey and eating.

And if you ask everyday people like, uh, Hey, you, what do you think about Thanksgiving? They probably don't know the history about it either. Uh, and I'm going to talk about the history in a little bit, but you should also know that a lot of people don't know about the history and a lot of people probably don't care about the history. So if you don't care about the history, it's really okay.

You can feel free to skip it, or you can feel free to just listen to it and then not care and not remember. But anyways, let's take a short little break here. Cause I need to review those little things about history things.

And then I'm going to talk about actual, like the actual history of Thanksgiving. 

Okay. So let's go and get started.

But before we get started, I got to tell you, uh, when I talk about the history of Thanksgiving, it's going to start talking about the, uh, history of America. And when I talk about this stuff, a lot of the times in history textbooks, uh, they use certain terms like hard words to describe certain things. And, uh, some of them are like names and some of them are places.

Uh, but actually because those things aren't really that useful. And the point of this podcast is to try to like, let you enjoy stories in English. I'm going to try to avoid using those words just because those aren't really going to be useful words for you.

Uh, and so what I'm going to do is I'm going to take out a lot of the details that are like too hard to explain. And I'm going to be trying to tell like the main stories in like a story version. And so it's a little bit fictional because like I'm describing it in a really simple way, but probably this way is easier to understand and easier to remember.

Uh, just to remember that if you really care about certain details, you got to go look it up yourself. Like my version is probably not good enough. So you can read Wikipedia, you can watch YouTube, uh, and those will give you more information than my version.

But anyways, let's go ahead and get started. 

So I'm going to be telling you about the history of Thanksgiving and a little bit about the history of the US. Uh, so a long time ago, um, before the US existed, uh, well, the land was there, but the US, the country, didn't exist yet. Uh, there was a group of people that lived in the UK.

So in England and they wanted to move away so that they can have more freedom so that they can do whatever they want. So they got on a boat and then they went and they traveled and they went really far away and they went to a place that they thought was India and they're like, Oh, wait, we know that this is India. You know, according to the map, this is India.

Uh, but actually it wasn't India. It was actually like what is now called the US and so they went there and then when they landed, you know, they set up stuff, so they're like building houses and they're setting up farms and they're fishing and they're making sure that, you know, they can, they can live there. And, uh, they also met some local people there.

And so those local people, they called them Indians because they thought that this was India. And they're like, Oh, you must be Indians. But actually they weren't Indians.

They were Native Americans. That's the correct term for them. They're Native Americans.

And then, uh, so the Native Americans were actually very nice and they helped those people settle in. So they taught them, Oh, here's how you capture like the local animals. So, you know, to hunt for meat, here's how you do that.

And then also here's like some crops. Here's how you grow the crops here, because the crops that you grow back in your, where you're from, it's a little bit different from the crops that grow well here. So then they taught people how to grow things like corn.

And then, so they helped them a lot and you know, they were very happy. They're very good friends. And so what happened was, uh, then, then the very first Thanksgiving happened.

And, uh, again, a lot of these things, there are certain details that if you look up, it's like actually, Oh, there's more to it. It's actually not true, but I'm telling you the simple version, but anyways, there was a first Thanksgiving. So a first, the first Thanksgiving is just like a really big feast that lasted three days.

So for three days, uh, you know, all those people that moved, they were like, yeah, let's have a nice moving party where, you know, we successfully moved. We've got plants and stuff. And then they had a big thing, which they called Thanksgiving.

And they also invited those local native Americans. And they're like, Hey, you Indians come join us. But actually they're not Indians.

They're native Americans. And then, uh, so they all had this great feast and that was the very first Thanksgiving. And, uh, I think that's about, that's about it for the simple version.

There's going to be more if I wanted to add more details, but that's like, that's about it. And then, so Thanksgiving, uh, eventually later on, there was a president, a really, really famous American president called Abraham Lincoln. And then, uh, there was some stuff going on at the time.

There was some unrelated stuff, but then Abraham Lincoln said, all right, everybody from now on Thanksgiving is a national holiday. It's a national holiday, which means all the States have to celebrate it. And it's on the last Thursday of every November.

So that's going to be in this month. That's going to be the 27th and that is Thanksgiving. So this is like one of the things that Abraham Lincoln did.

Abraham Lincoln did a lot of stuff. Uh, but this is one of the things, and, uh, that's, I guess that's about it for the history of Thanksgiving. Now, ever since then, uh, we've had Thanksgiving.

We meaning like Americans have always had Thanksgiving and it's like a holiday. So Thanksgiving is a holiday. So there's no school and there's no work on that day.

And usually there's like also extra holidays around that. So maybe like, because Thursday is Thanksgiving and the weekend is already like holiday, then probably that Friday is also a holiday usually, but you don't know for sure. It depends on the company.

It depends on the school. 

So that's Thanksgiving. 

And now that we've talked about the history of Thanksgiving, let's go ahead and take a short little break.

And then I'll come back and I'm going to tell you about some stories.

All right. So, you know, we just talked about the history of Thanksgiving and a little bit about American history.

But now I want to talk to you about Chris history. So a little bit of story stuff from my life. And, uh, so earlier in this episode, I said, you know, if someone were to point at me and say, Hey, Chris, think about Thanksgiving, I'm like, Oh, okay.

I'm thinking about Thanksgiving. And they're like, okay, what's on your mind. And, you know, that's just for educational purposes.

It's for the purposes of like explaining stuff on this podcast. So I would say, Oh yeah, there's like Turkey stuff and eating stuff and eating Turkey stuff. That's like Thanksgiving.

And that's true, but there's a little bit more to it in my mind. So in my mind, in my first year of college, so my freshman year of college, uh, around Thanksgiving, like some funny stuff happened and I'm always going to remember that. So I want to tell you the story here.

Okay. So this is freshman year of college, right? So, um, this is like the first year of college and Thanksgiving again, when is Thanksgiving Thanksgiving is the last Thursday of November. And school usually starts around August.

So it hasn't really been that long since school started. And so I, you know, I just recently started college and I didn't have that many friends, but I had some. And, uh, what I really liked to do was I liked to play badminton.

So badminton is kind of like the sport where you take this badminton racket and then you hit this little thing back and forth, it's kind of like tennis, but it's a lot, if I say this, people are going to get mad, but I think it's a lot easier than tennis because tennis, you have to hit it like the right way. And it's really easy to mess it up and badminton while you're supposed to hit it and you want to do a good job, but if you aren't super good and you haven't done it before, you can probably still do an okay job if it's like your first day playing tennis, unless you're really talented, you're probably going to do an absolutely terrible job. You probably won't be able to play like a proper game.

Uh, but anyway, so badminton was really fun and I would go to the school gym and then play badminton around, like, I think I started maybe, you know, October, maybe November or so. And then, uh, so I played badminton and then, uh, I bumped into, I like met, I guess, friends that were also at the gym playing badminton and I played with them and we had a really good time and we became friends and I was thinking like, Oh, I'm making friends and I wanted to make friends because everybody likes friends. Right.

Uh, and then, um, so this is an experience that I think a lot of people probably, uh, have experienced in college. And so, and that's kind of like a getting invited to church. So, so those friends that played badminton, they were kind of like, Hey, Chris, like, uh, do you want to hang out on Sunday? And then I was like, Oh yeah, sure.

I love hanging out. And then, uh, they were like, okay, so why don't you come to this place? And it's like, I went to that place. And then on Sunday, like, uh, actually it was, it was actually an invitation to church, so then, uh, I went to church and then, you know, like people, like everyone there was Christian and they're going to church and that I was the only one that wasn't Christian because, you know, I'm not actually Christian, although, you know, I think Christianity is pretty cool and I've studied it before and I think it's a cool religion, but anyways, like I went here and I was expecting to hang out with friends and play badminton, but instead, like, uh, we went to church instead and, uh, and that's fine.

Okay. So I'm thinking, sure. I'm okay with it.

Although I did feel a little bit weird because I'm the only one that's not Christian and, uh, these people were Christian and then, uh, so then like this kind of stuff, it kind of became, uh, like more, and I wasn't really stressed out. I should mention that throughout this whole time I was never stressed. I was never like, oh no, like this, this is like scary or anything like that.

I was just like, oh, maybe, maybe I don't belong here is all that I was thinking. And then, uh, so like I went to this, this like church event thing. And then after that, like sometimes we would hang out and play badminton and other times they would ask, Hey, what are you doing on Wednesday? And then like, I never know.

I never knew if it was like an invite to like play badminton or an invite to like go hang out at the church thing. But even the church hangouts, like they're actually pretty fun, I think. Um, and a lot of the times people talk about like deeper things.

So they're kind of like, oh, like, uh, what are some things that are really important to you as a person? And like, these are just really good questions that I think are good for anyone. It doesn't matter if you're Christian. It doesn't matter if you're not Christian.

Um, and then, uh, so then, then came around, like it became, I guess around like the, you know, the third or fourth Thursday of November and around this time, I had no plans for Thanksgiving break. So remember Thanksgiving, uh, it's, it's a national holiday, so there's no school on Thanksgiving and usually depending on the company or the school, there's also like holidays surrounding Thanksgiving. So you call it like Thanksgiving break where you have like maybe probably a whole week off where you have like, you know, Monday through, through Friday off and Thursday's Thanksgiving.

So of course you get that off, but then also you would get Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, maybe there's no classes or something, or maybe there's no work if you're working and you're not a student, but, uh, so, so this is like the Thanksgiving break and then, uh, then, uh, you know, the group of friends asked me, they're like, Hey, Chris, what are you doing for Thanksgiving break? And I was thinking like, oh, nothing, you know, I don't have any plans. And they're like, oh, okay. So we're all going to go snowboarding.

Do you want to go snowboarding? And I was thinking like, oh dude, I've never been snowboarding. And I was like, oh, this is, this is really exciting. Like I really wanted to go snowboarding, but then, um, you know, I kind of thought about it some more and like, I was the only one that like wasn't Christian.

And also every time we hang out and we do stuff, like we have like a nice Korean barbecue dinner or we hang out and play badminton afterwards, like we go to the church and then eat something, every single time, like the church paid for it. And I didn't pay for anything. And so, you know, I'm fine with getting free stuff.

I love getting free stuff. Okay. So if there are like free samples, uh, sometimes in Japan, like I walk around and then I go to shops and stuff and they're like, Hey, do you want to try our chocolate? And they're like, we have free samples.

Of course I take the free samples. I love free stuff. But I mean, like, uh, to go on a snowboarding trip, there's a lot of costs involved, like you have to pay for like the car rental and you have to pay for like the cabin or the lodging, where are you going to sleep and also like the food and stuff like that.

Like, uh, it's not, it's not like a small thing. You know, if you buy someone a meal in the US depending on where you are, it's probably going to cost you, I don't know, like $10, maybe $15, maybe $20. It's not going to cost like a hundred dollars, but to go on a snowboarding trip for like a week and, you know, to like rent the snowboard and do all this stuff like that, it's going to cost more than a hundred dollars.

So then I was thinking like, uh, in Japanese, there's something that's kind of like moushiwakenai, oh, like I feel bad. I feel guilty. I feel sorry.

Uh, so I, I felt kind of bad for like going to all this church stuff and then like using their money and eating their food and that I don't do anything for them. I'm just like there. And then, so what I ended up doing was, um, you know, I, when they asked me, do you want to go snowboarding? When they asked me, do you want to go snowboarding? I said, yes, I would love to.

I'm like really excited to go snowboarding. And I meant this with like all of my heart, because I wanted to go snowboarding. I've never been in my life.

And then, and then like, I think the week of like, like basically a couple of days before I was thinking like, oh man, I don't know. Like maybe I can't go on this trip. Like, I feel kind of guilty.

I was feeling a little bit of the, what I said in Japanese, the moushiwakenai. So then, uh, what I said was like, I said, okay, I'm sorry. Like, I don't think I can go.

And then, um, the truth was like, uh, I just felt guilty about using their money and I didn't want to go because I didn't want to like promise them that I would become Christian, which probably wasn't even their goal, but I just felt a little bit like a little bit weird. So then I said that. Also, I was young.

So, you know, I, I didn't really do a good job saying my true feelings. So what I said was something really vague. Like, oh, I'm sorry.

I can't go. And they were kind of like, oh no, like you should totally come. It's okay.

Are you feeling all right? And then, uh, I was like, oh yeah, yeah, I'm feeling fine. And they're kind of like, well, why can't you come? So like, I basically canceled on them without like a good reason, because I didn't want to say like, because I'm the only one that's not Christian. Um, and so actually now, if someone were to point to me and say, hey, Chris, think about Thanksgiving.

And then I would think about this experience. I would think about how my freshman year of college, I almost went on a snowboarding trip and I almost like went and did some stuff that I really wanted to, but then I felt kind of guilty about like, you know, doing all this for free. So then I didn't go.

And, uh, in hindsight, I kind of regret that. I wish I had just been honest with all of my feelings from the very beginning. Um, or if I had just gone and then, you know, just enjoyed it because realistically, uh, you know, they probably had a lot of money and they were fine with paying for someone like me, but anyways, uh, that was my experience.

And so instead of actually going on the snowboarding trip, what I did was I stayed at like my dorm room. I stayed in this place called Cunningham. Uh, and, and then, uh, I went to Vietnam village, which is like a restaurant that I really liked.

And I went there basically every single day, uh, for all of the Thanksgiving break. So I went there, I think a total of like 10 times in a week. So I said every day, right? So in one week, there's like seven days, but sometimes I went there twice in a day.

So it was like 10 times in seven days. So I ate there a lot. And then later on, I would actually end up working at Vietnam village, but that's like a story for another time.

But I went there and ate a lot. And then I was thinking, I think that whole week I was thinking maybe I should have gone snowboarding. So anyways, if there's one thing to take away from this, I don't want this to sound like, um, I don't want this to sound like I got tricked and then like I was going to go on something nice, but then I got tricked.

That's not the case at all. Like this is something that I decided. So they invited me and they said, you can come, you don't have to promise anything.

You can just come and enjoy. And that's what we want. And then I said, okay, sure.

But then in my mind, I was thinking like, Oh, is that really all you want? I bet you want me to do some other stuff. I bet you want me to become Christian or something. And then, so then like, you know, because of my own thinking, like I said, okay.

And I did like a vague cancellation. I was kind of like, Oh, I'm sorry. I can't go.

And then I didn't really tell them what I was really thinking. Cause I didn't want to hurt their feelings, but actually sometimes it's just best to be honest. So there's a certain phrase here.

We just called honesty is the best policy. Uh, and policy just means like kind of like the rules or like the way that you do things. And so sometimes honesty is the best way to go.

So in this case, like I kind of regret it a little bit. I kind of regret like, you know, saying this stuff, I should have just been honest. A lot of the times it's just honesty is the best policy.

So that's the end of the story. And actually maybe this podcast episode is going to be a little bit short, but I'm going to go ahead and end it here. And Oh no, we didn't talk about, we didn't talk about cyber Monday.

Let me go and add this cyber Monday part, which I didn't really prepare. Uh, but, uh, so basically, um, there's like three kind of main things in Thanksgiving, sorry, not in Thanksgiving in November, uh, there is Thanksgiving, which is the main thing that I talked to you about, which is about like eating and Turkey and stuff. And then there's the day after that, which is black Friday and black Friday is like when there's a bunch of sales, there's a bunch of discounts.

So if you want to buy something on the Friday, right after Thanksgiving, there's usually a lot of sales and promotions, but there are also usually a lot of lines because everybody wants to save money. So everybody wants to go buy the thing for cheap. And so they like line up early in the morning.

So on that day, if you want to put in a lot of effort to try to save money and buy stuff for cheaper, you can do that, or you can just stay at home and relax. And then there's also one last thing, which is kind of something that became popular probably in the past, like 10, 15 years. But, um, black Friday was like back when, you know, online shopping wasn't that popular.

So you have to go on black Friday, which is the Friday right after Thanksgiving. It's the day after Thanksgiving. And then there's something called Cyber Monday, which is, um, when websites, you know, they sell stuff online and they're like, well, we also celebrate black Friday, but they wanted to coin another term they wanted to make another term, so they just called it Cyber Monday.

So then a lot of stuff, for example, Amazon will definitely do something for Cyber Monday, which is if you shop online at our website on Monday, the Monday after Thanksgiving, um, then we'll give you like these discounts, uh, these sales will be really good. And so they basically just want you to spend money and they promise you a couple of discounts. So I wanted to talk about these things a little bit earlier, uh, in this episode.

So this episode is going to release, you know, a good amount of time before Thanksgiving, a good amount of time before black Friday, a good amount of time before Cyber Monday, just so that if you want it to prepare for that, then you'll know what to expect. And again, if you don't want to do it, it's totally fine. There's always other years.

Um, but you know, if you want to do it, it might be fun, but of course, you know, stay warm, stay healthy and, you know, just make sure that you're not doing anything too dangerous. And if you get a chance to go snowboarding, go snowboarding, snowboarding is pretty great. So anyways, so now I'm going to go ahead and end this podcast episode.

So thanks so much for listening to this episode of Kuli English podcast. And hopefully I'll have some more interesting stories for you next Tuesday, and hopefully you'll also be listening. So thanks so much.

And we'll see you next Tuesday.